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In early October, Metal Gear Solid creator and friend of every celebrity alive Hideo Kojima posted that he'd watched and enjoyed the debut of Dan Da Dan, the anime adaptation of Yukinobu Tatsu's terrific manga. This isn't out of the ordinary, as Kojima is pretty fond of liberally posting about all of the media that he likes. And when he praised the seventh episode, at the time the best episode so far in a long string of 'best episodes so far', it affirmed that Dan Da Dan is a series that you shouldn't miss.
However, the power of Dan Da Dan lies in something that might not be apparent at first. In fact, much of the strength of the series comes from it undermining any expectations that you might have.
Dan Da Dan tells the story of two teens, the sheepish Ken Takakura, aka "Okarun", who is fascinated by aliens and the paranormal, and the outspoken Momo Ayase who, thanks in part to her spirit medium grandmother, is invested in the supernatural.
Neither is convinced about the other's obsessions, and so when Takakura goes to investigate a "haunted" tunnel, he becomes possessed by a spirit there. Meanwhile, Ayase is abducted by perverse aliens, an encounter that awakens her psychokinetic powers. Working together, the two begin to take on all manner of fantastical enemies, all while navigating their own burgeoning romantic feelings.
Unusual usual
'People taking on sci-fi monsters while blushing around one another' is certainly not uncharted territory, and it would be easy for Dan Da Dan to operate on a level of simple escapism. But few anime have been able to filter all this through pure, effective teenage angst quite like Dan Da Dan. Ayase, like most teens, fears being an outsider, and still reckons with childhood memories of being treated like one thanks to her grandmother's metaphysical mandates.
Takakura, on the other hand, soon discovers that his genitals have been stolen by Turbo Granny, the spirit that lurks within him (yes, really). And so the typical hyper-awareness that one has about themselves during this stage in your life is magnified tenfold for the eternally anxious Takakura. It doesn't help that many of the creatures and spirits prod and taunt Takakura and Ayase about these things, exposing all of the little insecurities that even regular teenagers struggle to hide.
Dan Da Dan is also beautifully animated and bears stellar character and creature designs (courtesy of anime veteran Naoyuki Onda), some of which reflect traditional Japanese yokai and a host of otherworldly beasts. These foes are outsized, monstrous, and come loaded with their own eccentricities, but just when you feel caught up in the adrenaline of seeing a spirit-filled Takakura take on one of them in a high-speed contest, you're hit with the gut punch of what lies under the quirks.
Many of these foes, from Turbo Granny, whose spirit tends to the souls of young women who died under horrific circumstances, to Acrobatic Silky, a yokai who desperately searches for the child that was once taken from her when she was alive, generate profound sympathy. The latter was even treated to a beautiful tearjerker of an extended flashback that showed her attempts to give her daughter the best life possible despite their circumstances.
Bittersweet victory
As such, their defeat is rarely a triumphant 'boss fight' event, but instead a bittersweet denouement to a tragic afterlife. Even human characters that initially emerge as one-note bullies, like pink-haired Aira Shiratori, are revealed to be grappling with something personal. Aira, for instance, lost her mother at a young age, and much of her imperious personality comes from her search for a purpose.
Dan Da Dan continuously shows us that it has heart. Takakura and Ayase bicker constantly in will-they/won't-they fashion, and it's common in lesser anime for relationships to subsist entirely on this type of repartee. But the pair are also constantly worried about one another. From the beginning, there's genuine care shown for each other's emotional upkeep, something that they've taken upon themselves even if the other person is still, in the grand scheme of things, a stranger. They're not teaming up to save the world (though they do want to get Takakura's privates returned to him) – they're teaming up because they've formed a genuine connection. In their cliquish school setting, that's pretty rare.
It's easy to imagine the kind of story that Dan Da Dan could've been, one that milks nothing but fan service out of Takakura and Ayase's relationship, one that presents new creatures for the sole purpose of their explosive defeats, and one that ignores any weighty themes about growing up and teenage paranoia in favor of purely digestible escapades. But Dan Da Dan rarely takes the easy route. Instead, it's consistently thoughtful in a way that has turned each episode into not just a fun weekly occurrence, but an outright event. Combine that with a production that is hitting all the right notes, and you have an anime that's bound to surprise you regardless of whether you've read the manga or not.
Dan Da Dan is set to return for season 2 in July 2025. While we wait, you can read everything we know about Dan Da Dan season 2.
